All international freight by air, land and sea resembles cold-chain logistics as winter approaches, which means they could become carriers of Covid-19, Wu Zunyou, Chief Epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, warned. Meanwhile, the largest marine products market in Beijing has strengthened management to prevent infections. The virus thrives in low temperature environments, and the lower the temperature, the longer the virus will be active, Wu told the Global Times. The risk of infection through contaminated packages arriving from overseas increases significantly, Wu said, noting that daily new cases around the world have surpassed 600,000 in November. Wu’s statement came after UPS and FedEx employees at Shanghai Pudong International Airport tested positive for Covid-19, after the airport initiated nucleic acid testing for all staff.

Sun Xiaodong, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press conference that the confirmed local cases reported on November 9 and 10 had been exposed to one contaminated air cargo container. These sporadic cases related to imported cargo show that the risk of Covid-19 entering China remains, and China will face severe challenges domestically in winter. Facing increasing infection risks brought about by cold-chain deliveries, some Chinese provinces and cities, including Shandong, Gansu, Nanjing and Wuhan have announced the building of centralized supervision centers for frozen products to be disinfected, and to conduct Covid-19 nucleic acid tests before allowing them to enter the local market. Shandong ordered every city in the province to build a large warehouse to test and disinfect imported frozen food by December 10. Seafood companies and markets are also enhancing management to prevent infections. Eason Li, China General Manager at Norwegian seafood processor Hofseth International, told the Global Times that they had raised the safety level during processing to prevent infections, and would try their best to seal the products well to prevent infections during delivery. 

Beijing’s Jingshen seafood market, the largest marine products distribution center, is no longer open to individual consumers, and strictly manages personnel passing in and out to prevent people from gathering at the market. Individual consumers can only shop online. They can collect the products at a designated place at the market gate, or receive the products via courier. Chinese Customs on November 14 said that they had held talks with all 109 countries and regions that export cold-chain food to China, and would suspend imports from companies in these countries suffering from virus infections among its staff. However, no Covid-19 infections caused by direct consumption of contaminated cold chain foods have been found so far.

One of China’s distinct solutions to combat the Covid-19 pandemic is setting up an international QR health code. Observers said the QR code might get a trial first in China’s neighboring countries that will have “green lanes” for travel with China, to build up trust in the system and dissipate concerns over user privacy and data security. Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the establishment of an international mechanism involving the mutual recognition of health codes, and he welcomed participation by more countries. The mechanism should be based on nucleic acid test results and use universally recognized QR codes, President Xi said via videolink at the 15^th G20 Leaders’ Summit. “At present, the establishment of an international mechanism of mutual recognition of health codes is in the early stage, and the next step will focus on the mutual recognition of the mechanism among different countries, information protection and data applications,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian added. 

In China, health codes are enabled via Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat mini-programs, requesting subscribers to fill in personal information such as ID numbers, mobile phone numbers and home addresses for a colored QR code to be generated. Like traffic lights, the green code is an indication of safety while a yellow or red code would mean mandatory quarantine, because the individual may have been in contact with a Covid-19 case. People in China need to show a green code before entering supermarkets, hotels, parks and restaurants. The QR health code is not yet available on a national level, as provinces and cities in China have their own codes. A study by Oxford University released in April found that if 56% of a country’s population used a tracking app, the coronavirus epidemic could be suppressed completely. There are no technical barriers to the creation of a mutually recognized health code mechanism, experts said. “The proposed mechanism is the only conduit to restart the international aviation market, which is expected to come before the availability of coronavirus vaccines,” Qi Qi, an aviation market watcher, told the Global Times.

The Chinese mainland reported 98 locally transmitted Covid-19 cases over the past 30 days, 7.5 times as many as reported in the previous 30 days. 

This overview is based on reports by The Global Times, China Daily and Shanghai Daily.